Sunday, March 19, 2017

Universal values and truth against paleo-conservatism

Paul Blest has an excellent article in The Nation arguing that those in favor of "Calexit" or the secession of California and other "blue states" are dumb and cruel (paleo-conservative) and would leave the poor and the ethnic minorities in the hands of the worst politicians. ﻿ "The idea that the left should completely abandon the poor and working class in entire swaths of the country—which, in many places like Mississippi, is largely made up of people of color who have faced systemic discrimination at every level for generations—is pure cruelty." To defeat national-populism and xenophobia, what is needed is not secession and communitarian laissez-faire, but solidarity and universal values. Of course it is also necessary to fight for the truth, as the national-populist advance their cause by systematically lying about policies, climate change, or economics. Tim Harford argues that fighting lies is not easy, because telling the truth is more complex and boring and unpopular than lying: "a simple untruth can beat off a complicated set of facts simply by being easier to understand and remember. When doubt prevails, people will often end up believing whatever sticks in the mind." He finishes by suggesting as solution that we had some kind of Carl Sagan or David Attemborough of the social sciences, because scientific curiosity seems to work as a therapy to resist lies. But that is in contradiction to Harford's suggestion that fighting for truth is a complex issue. There are no easy solutions. A respected TV advocate would be a good thing, but nothing can replace the work of millions of people in schools, the media and politics organizing and fighting for truth. Harford gives the example of the tobacco industry as a lying machine that succeeded for many decades, but it ultimately lost its battle against truth.